Getting in the Zone

I wake up early, about 5am, to find Mark missing from the bedroom. I hear the clunking and whistling noises that the apartment makes and seemingly the distant boiling of a kettle. He must be up – I way up the options and decide to take the opportunity to sleep like a star-fish in the lovely big bed.

An hour and a half later and I come round to the sound of a kettle again. I muster the energy to de-star-fish and make my way along the corridor to the lounge area of the apartment. With one eye still shut I eye-up two plates of fresh fruit and yoghurt on the table and a pot of coffee on the side. Mark is pleased that I’m up – in the last two hours he’s watched Holyoaks, Eggheads and Australian Breakfast TV.

Mark is feeling more human – he says the trauma of the flight and jet lag is wearing off. We’re 11 hours ahead of the UK – so pretty much our time clocks have been turned on their heads. We decide we need to try to beat it today and get into the time zone. We start with a visit to the gym downstairs in an attempt to get our bodies thinking its morning and this is normal. My legs feel like lead on the running machine – I conclude that my body can’t be conned into it as easy as my mind.

We head out into Sydney and actively avoid Coffee Boulevard – the coffee shop that we had been to yesterday which is around the corner and was recommended by the hotel check in lady. I speculate that the moody rude barista who served us the most vile treacle like coffee must be check-in lady’s sister or cousin and they are in it together as there is really no other reason why Coffee Boulevard could be seen as good by anyone.

We take our parcel of imported presents to the post office and stick them in the post to Bunbury and then follow on with a stroll down through the centre of Sydney, stopping off at the Rockport shop where I bought a really nice pair of shoes eight years ago and buy another pair.

We’ve made our own lunch which is in the tuppaware containers we brought from the UK and decide to take a trip out to Watson’s Bay and have our lunch there. We went to Watson’s Bay years before as well with our friend Karen who lived in Sydney at the time. She now lives in Bunbury on the west coast and that’s where we’ll be for Christmas. We sit on the grass and eat lunch surrounded by squawking fighting birds and then watch and listen to the frantic flapping as one of them falls into one of the nearby rubbish bins.

Back to the apartment and we have a quick ‘beat the jetlag’ power nap – unfortunately it is disturbed by the repeated knocking on the door of the room service lady. At first I think it’s the room tipping and tapping again but then get up and find her wielding some towels in my general direction. The result is a total of 18 minutes nap before we’re up again, showered and heading out to meet Duncan who Mark studied Architecture with in the 80’s and his wife and business partner Kristin.

We have a lovely evening, see their office and have a few drinks in the ‘Local Bar’ (that’s the name of the bar) before heading down to Balmoral to have a lovely fish supper overlooking the bay. It’s a beautiful sunny evening with a little chill in the air and the wine flows freely. We chatter with Duncan and Kristin – their work/home set-up in Sydney is very similar to how ours was in the UK and we have many notes to compare and experiences to swap.

They need to head off to their daughter’s basketball final at about 9.00pm so we head back towards the apartment and stop off for a drink on the way. The time is catching up with us as we arrive back at the hotel a little after 10pm. We manage to cope with an episode of Kath and Kim before conceding defeat and retiring to bed, happy that we haven’t had a jet-lagged  fuelled breakdown during the day and are finally getting in the zone!

Liam, 06 December 2013, Sydney, Australia